


Into the Night

by MooseFeels



Series: In the Garden of Your Love [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Mild Angst, Teenage Castiel, gardener!dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 22:32:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can't breathe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Night

Castiel sits in a little used parlor and tries to get his heartbeat to actually slow, to catch his breath comfortably. He feels jittery and delicate. He feels like he's breaking. 

He would go up to his room, but that would mean taking the stairs and that would only make it worse. Far, far worse.

He tries to count through his breaths, like the doctor taught him, but it's hard to slow down and it's hard to get air.

He had to tell Dean though, and he thought he could take the run but he couldn't. He even thought he was doing better, even. Thought that he'd picked back up after the crash. He's falling again, though, in this dark room that smells like potpourri and dust.

His hands shake as he unbuttons his shirt. They feel numb and distantly cold. The realization sends little alarm bells ringing in his head. 

Something about deprivation. 

He blinks and blinks and blinks, first to clear his vision and then to stay awake. If he falls unconscious, he knows he's in trouble. Bad trouble.

He's trying to hush the panic and even his breaths and stay awake when he feels a warm hand on his back and hears his brother's voice say, "Oh, Cassie, what have you done to yourself." 

And then the world goes comfortably dark. 

When he wakes back up, he's in his bed. The sheets are cold and dry. 

Everything is cold and dry. It's a familiar feeling after an attack.   
He coughs, and he hears someone say, "Now, Castiel, I know better than anyone that it is hard to resist the call of the sock hop, but for now, the dance floor is telling you 'no.'"  
He turns, and a man with short blonde hair is sitting in a chair looking critically at a valve on an air tank." 

"Excuse me?" Castiel asks. "Do I know you?"

He looks over at him. He's middle aged, a little rough about the edges. He wears close denim jeans and a worn shirt. "I'm Balthazar," he answers crisply. "I'm a friend of Gabriel's." 

"Are you a doctor?" Castiel asks. 

"He was," Gabriel answers as he walks into the room. "England revoked his license in the trial. He's saved my bacon a few times, though." He smiles sweetly, a little sadly, at Castiel. "How's it going, baby brother?" 

Gabriel swaggers into a chair, sits in it the wrong way, fishes a lollipop out of his jacket pocket. A habit he's picked up abroad- holding the affectations of a less mannerly class. Of the less well educated. 

Hiding.

"I was fine until you came back," Castiel answers. "Not a single attack."

"It's the heat," Balthazar interjects. "Summers can be difficult for people with your condition, particularly damp ones."

Gabriel pulls out his candy with a moist slurp. "Why didn't you get a maid to bring you your medication?"

Castiel shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "I didn't want to...they're always so busy."

Gabriel sighed. "Kiddo, you've got to take care of yourself," he said. "I worry about you."

Castiel had to look away from his brother to keep himself from rolling his eyes. From getting snappish.

He falls back asleep, and when he wakes his room is empty and it is night. His lungs don't ache anymore. He doesn't feel overwrought with the adrenaline. He steps gingerly out of bed and slips out of the house towards Dean's cottage.

He's three feet from the door when he realizes Dean's brother will be there, too. That they won't be alone.  
The door opens when he arrives anyway, and Dean smiles warmly at him.

"Heya, Cas," he greets. "Come meet my baby brother."

The last terror and tension nested in his chest melts at the words, and he lets himself be pulled into the house. 

Into the home.


End file.
